bodo "Oberschnäpser" fehrmann

Bodo Fehrmann was born in 1927 in Bamberg, Germany to Gunnar and Annika Fehrmann. Gunnar, a veteran of the First War, held his house in a militaristic fashion, enforcing strict rules on Bodo and his siblings, Marta and Udo.

At the age of sixteen, Bodo quit his apprenticeship at the steel foundry, ran away from home and lied about his age to join the Army. He fit in well in the Army, his strict upbringing bearing credit. He rose quickly in rank and by his eighteenth birthday, had attained the rank of Obergefreiter.

For the first year of his military service, Bodo was a part of an occupational troop in the south of France, assigned to the 275. Infanterie. At the time of the Normandy invasion, Bodo was mobilized as a part of Kampfgruppe Heintz, as an assistant squad leader.

Bodo was scared, but pressed on, as he wanted to become a decorated fighter as his father had. Although he had written many letters to send to his family, he was ashamed to do so and the letters remained in his bread bag, wrinkled and soiled, never to be delivered.

On the second day that Bodo's squad was involved in combat, the Gruppenfuhrer, Feldwebel Hans Wesp, was shot in the lung and perished on the field of battle. As the assistant squad leader, Bodo took his place as Gruppenfuhrer. He remained a Gruppenfuhrer for the rest of his military career.

During the fighting in Aachen, Bodo received a shot in the thigh from a nervous young soldier in his own Gruppe and was awarded the Black Wound Badge. Bodo was not angry or upset with the youth, because he understood what it was like to be a scared boy far from home. After a few weeks of rest in a hospital, Bodo was returned to his squad to find that half of the men had died and were replaced by men from surrounding units. This hit Bodo hard because he felt that if he hadn't been wounded, he would have been able to somehow protect his men. Bodo never wore his wound badge.

Bodo was shot in the throat in the battle of the Hurtgen Forest and died in the snow with his men.

His parents never learned of his death, or even that he had joined the Army. The letters in his breadbag were never mailed.

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